Monday, September 8, 2014

The want to be noticed

Edit : Having finished typing, turned out that this extremely long blog post is all-text, very personal and may bore you guys that is expecting dev story. I'm really sorry about that!

I have noticed (pun not intended!) something of myself, that deep inside I really wanted to be noticed.

My team worked remotely and everyone would be working at different time. I often get this feeling of "Am I the only one hard-working on this project!?"

Of course it's bad and rude to think like that, but I can't help but keep having that kind of thought. And it sucks. It's no good to mistrust friends who maybe actually working hard.

We have a secret Facebook group which will be the place to show progress to each other and post information and plans. I'm sure 90% of the posts and comments are mine.

Sure, my friends can get the job done but not as agile as I demand. They often received the task and disappear. As I worked on the game non-stop about every 2-3 hours I would run into this "Damn! I'm so tired but I have to done this for the game to look great. I wondered how are others doing right now? Maybe they are relaxing, watching Korean drama, playing games? Damn!"

As a result 90% of posts in that Facebook page are mine. I have to capture screenshots, record videos, and think of motivational paragraph to go along with it in the hope of driving the morale of my team. The usual occurrence is "Seen by 3" appearing underneath.

Maybe it's fine for progress post to be "Seen by 3" but even when I asked a question it's got "Seen by 3" When I asked if the video or website I design is good enough or not the answer is "Seen by 3". This pain is doubled when I see my teammate posting a beautifully done water-colour image that is much harder to do than my simple task that is assigned to her 2 weeks ago. I have to beg her enough times and she will finish her job for me in only about 1 day. At the same time I will also think that my other teammates is probably enjoying online Steam games right now.

In some rare case my friend did press "Like" I was really happy. When I know I was noticed I felt satisfied. If I got some comments I would be like in orgasm.

I really wanted them to know I edited the App Store text over 6 times and in the process have to update the website 6 times along with the press-kit in it. I wanted them to know how long it is to make an After Effects video for the game. I wanted them to know that I go ahead to move character's eye a bit and in the process have to reimport the character. I wanted them to know that I go tweak every nuance of character and UI animation to be more exciting. I wanted them to know that releasing games is not fire-and-forget but I have to send messages to press, set up various social outlets, and building trust. I wanted them to know I did read various SlideShare and Gamasutra and found them very useful by sharing those links to Facebook group in the hope of being useful in their life too. Did they go into those article and read them like me? Did they noticed my under-the-hood effort? Did they think it was all-easy? Did they know I stayed up till morning for some minor details?

This got leaked to Twitter a lot, especially around 3AM when I really got suffered by this "Notice me" syndrome. I often rant on Twitter but of course no one was around to console me at that time. (No one ever did) I tweet in the morning so maybe they will see that I'm indeed working hard.

All this somehow came from my university life too. I often got ignored for most of the things I do. When I showed concern for my friends who is having trouble no one have really choose to discuss the problem with me.

Turned out that I secretly want them to notice, that I care for them too. But maybe they see me as a not-knowing-anything and indelicate guy. The result is that most of the time I'm the one who is not knowing "the news" that everyone is talking about because no one want to disclose with me. I think of myself as a unreliable person too. If I were them I would not disclose any delicate problem with myself either, lol.

I even often did something that have near 0% chance to be noticed, yet wanted to be noticed. It's so conflicting I don't even know what is happening in me but I go ahead and do it anyway.

I keep trying something stupid like being in someplace for no reason or accepting many volunteer works for the very slim chance for my crush to notice me but of course that did not happen because she already have a good life with my other friend already. I keep training myself to be better and keep making/practicing something new for the slightest chance that I can use these skills to be any useful to someone I care/love, but no chance. (At least I'm a better person now, maybe a bit more reliable, I hope.)

I write a personal diary too. The personal diary is meant to be read by myself in the future, I suppose, but at the same time I wanted all my secrets it to leak out someday. I don't want my secret thoughts to get lost forever. I want them to be noticed, preferably after I died because in there I write something pretty embarrassing about certain someone without any filters.

I even remembered which of many games I made, that "someone I really wanted to play" had actually played. (Those games are considered 'successful' by me.) I even vividly remembered where did she played my games! When making games often the driving force was "Will he/she liked and smiled to this?" and I would be like, recover to full vitality. I secretly had a habit of making games to be noticed, contrary to many peoples that is making games for fortune.

I came to love playing with animals like dogs and cats, because they seemed to remember me quickly and anticipate my next appearance too. When I feed and play with them they seems to appreciate my efforts and like me more. It's kind of sad when thinking about it now. lol

I hope all people I mentioned/bash here wouldn't 'notice' this blog post! I'm sure they won't, because no one can tolerate a wall of English text like this! Even my own team probably don't know I was running this stupid rant blog! Ha!

All of this bad thought maybe resolved if my team were working at the same place. So this is something to consider if you thought about running a remote team with minimal conferences especially if you are a project leader and must motivate your team via internet.

This all is a bad habit of mine I wanted to document. My teammates maybe actually hardworking or maybe work more efficiently than me so it took less time to get it done and is still my wonderful friends who is with me until the end of this Duel Otters project.

At this point the yellow light is lit with "Waiting for review" message. It's nearly there guys!